Wednesday, 8 October 2008

HICCUP

Being a one-man non-stop filmmaking type fella can be tough sometimes.Don't get me wrong, it's my bed, and I'll gladly get in, snuggle down, and pull the duvet over my head.But... Just now and again you can get the odd kicker that makes you pause for thought.One of the many projects I'm developing (Don't it sound utterly vapid when people say 'developing'?) took a little step back last week when some finance fell thru.It's the kind of thing that several years ago would have sent me into a dark corner blubbing like a child. Instead, it felt weird, and in a way it actually nudged me on, to get underway on even more projects.The thing about finance and films and all that stuff, is that it's all a bit tenuous. Like an enormous cooking pot awaiting ingredients via a supermarket delivery being brought to you by a unicorn pulling a carriage.One does get a little more pragmatic with age, as opposed to the boundlessly blind optimism you have when you start out. You start to take a "let's see" approach.There are arguments for both.Blind optimism got me thru a whole feature film. But without pragmatism I'd probably be in a lunatic asylum about now.

It was amongst all this strange introspection that I got the opportunity to work with a new DP last week. Not only that, but also a new piece of camera kit I'd never used before.The combination was highly potent.Thoughts of tax credits and gap funding and skewing audiences made way for that good old wide-eyed look, followed by the child-like grin, at the monitor when a shot looked good.I found myself invigorated at new possibilities with technologies, and stimulated by new ideas from new people.

Being the one-man band, it's sometimes easy to get caught up in the every element of production, but right now, I'm back to dreaming of filming a man swinging his wife over a cliff using a Super-8 camera.Ah! I remember why now. I'm a director!